WesWorld

It seems that naval gun & mounting construction is a highly specialised field that would take many years of nuturing and commitment to develop. To reflect this, maybe we should rule that you can build guns and mountings of a calibre upto the number of factories you have. ie. if you have 10 factories, then you have the capacity to build 10" guns. If you have 50 factories you can build anything you want (how practical that is is open to question). If you have 12 factories and you want to build your own 15" guns then you'll have to build up you industrial base (3 factories) to build what you want.

This doesn't mean that you can't design mega battleships but you would have to import the weapons from someone how could build them.

Thoughts?

Cheers,

Interesting notion, and not unrealistic. Implementing it now, however, would require some re-writing of history on the part of the smaller nations.

How many 15" guns would your navy require before it is cost effective to develop your own manufacturing capability?

(How easily can a facility shift from producing a 10" to a 12" gun?)

What other use/uses would the gun manufacturing facility have after the required number of guns had been completed? A shipyard is flexible and can handle a wide range of ship types/tonnages in a single site - what about armament factories)

I don't really see how this would work, to be honest with you. Among other reasons several "small nations" have developed larger guns then they would be able to under this scheme (nations with 11 factories - Philippines, 320mm / India, 350mm / Denmark, 380mm).

Now, a rule that you have to spend at least 2-3 years developing a new major-caliber piece, rather than just springing it on an unsuspecting world at the keellaying of a new ship, might be workable.

That definately does not work with my plans, as not only could I not build the weapon of my choice, but no one else that could build it is allowed to by treaty.

My thoughts were to either spend a long amount of time working on it (seven to ten years on the guns themselves and then any actual construction on the vessel to mount said weapons), or the other thought I had was to spend the time and effort to build the factory to build the guns (I was going to build an 8th factory to reflect the production of an industry to build large cannons, but was more or less give the idea that such an effort would be a waste...though with my plan it would have still taken nearly 10 years to produce the factory).

That was my take on it.

Quoted

Among other reasons several "small nations" have developed larger guns then they would be able to under this scheme (nations with 11 factories - Philippines, 320mm / India, 350mm / Denmark, 380mm).

Agreed. However, we all have allies that could supply the ordnance. One would just have to re-write any background info on the gun development to reflect this.

J

As Turkey I wouldn't be able to produce guns above 7" even though I already have BB's in service. I think Swampy's idea would fare much better.

I would have no hope of building ships and producing large caliber guns at the same time with only 7 factorys, and theres no hope for infrastructure buildup on top of that either.

Some sort of economy based on the number of factorys to me would better determine what can be developed.
Yes the ammount of factory's dosn't change but the Economy would determine what you could develope while you would still be able to buildup infrastructure or ships.

Basically you would have factory's producing either IP's or warship materials and your economy producing EP's for weapon or technology developement. That way you wouldn't have to spend obsene ammounts of IP's to build factory's at the expence of building ships or infrastructure.

Good thing that I have the Mugen Gunkan Kenkyuu Kaihatsu Bunka. I never gave the translation: Infinite Weapons Research and Development Department. Access to an infinite number of weapon designs for an EP or two.
:-)
Seriously, I don't see the link between a nations economy and war producing factories... and a nation like denmark could easily have a stronger economy than a nation like Japan.
It would be more likely that economy is based on trading ports, non war producing factories, large cities, etc.
As for research time, how about caliber divided by 5 and rounded up? This would give you:
1"-5" - 1 year
6"-10" - 2 years
11"-15" - 3 years
16"-20" - 4 years
Just an idea.

I don't know either way. All I know is that I have a plan for a long term goal (irrational as it might be) of developing a 17 inch cannon in 10 years time....or possibly a few years later when the ship is finished for them to be mounted on...assuming delays in construction, barrel failures, building the facility to produce the weapon as well at the place to build the prototypes and testing them.

Whether those plans survive this topic is a question.

One really big problem with the original suggestion: the Skoda Works, which obviously is capable of producing rather large guns, is located in Czechoslovakia, which has 1 factory...

I can see what he means, it just can be done other ways. In the cases of Turkey and Skoda Works...and Germany, I think he means "have the factories or had the factories: Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire, and the Second Reich.

However wouldn't someone be able to build a plant in someone else's nation, and then they modify the plant later?

We'll see.


*Besides...how else is Walter suppose to be able to install a 8 - 10 meter cannon in his new super-dreadnought's bows.

Quoted

several "small nations"

... would build nuclear weapons if they thought they could get away with it.

Bofors had the capacity to make 11" guns. The Skoda example is noted but that was part of the AH empire besides Czechoslovakia is hardly in need of a battleship. Turkey always purchased from abroad. Even though Greece has 15 factories her ships are fitted with guns of foreign manufacture. I think it is a simple and easily tracked suggestion - not a burden to maintain. Japan built the Kurama and Ibukis because they had capacity for 7" armour plate at that time and they strived for independence in defense needs after this time. Should this be extended to armour plate aswell?

Cheers,

Quoted

several "small nations"... would build nuclear weapons if they thought they could get away with it

Some have.

Let me guess, the diameter of the weapon is 17"? ; )

Quoted

Originally posted by Rooijen10
Seriously, I don't see the link between a nations economy and war producing factories... and a nation like denmark could easily have a stronger economy than a nation like Japan.

Your thinking overall economy, I'm more or less talking about Military expendature. Military spending would be related to military building capacity.

Quoted

Originally posted by Rooijen10
It would be more likely that economy is based on trading ports, non war producing factories, large cities, etc.

Civilian economy would be based on ports yes, but we really don't factor in the civilian economy into our rules very well.

Quoted

Originally posted by Rooijen10
As for research time, how about caliber divided by 5 and rounded up? This would give you:
1"-5" - 1 year
6"-10" - 2 years
11"-15" - 3 years
16"-20" - 4 years
Just an idea.

Sounds like we have a start there.

As for small nations developing Nuclear weapons I don't think there is a hope in hell of that happening in our current sim time and if it did it would be extremely unrealistic.

I was speaking of present day - slipped into a different topic...sorry.

Perhaps using Walter's form for research then adding production time after that for tooling up a factory to produce the weapon(s). This could be set at a flat rate or partly based on the size of the weapon in question, but using infrustructure to retool a factory takes time, and the smaller a nation the longer it could take, depending on how much effort the nation wants to put into it. Building massive numbers of new factories doesn't seem unrealistic, but the time scale for use of infrustructure to get said factories build seems to be a little too much even in the real world as while such things are specialized, they are not impossible, nor does it take the entire industry of a nation to produce a cannon. Most don't because they know they can buy arms from most of the major nations of the world, but not everyone is willing to stay dependent on others for their protection. (Japan for instance in our world, Chile, the Philapines, and Denmark to one extent or another in Wesworld) I never said building large weapons would be easy, but it is possible within a shorter timeframe.

(Maximum output from Chile's 7 factories would produce 5 factories in about 12 years (if I took everything into account), and the remaining 5 to get to 17 factories in 8 years, which would place the earliest production time of such a weapon at about 1950. As I could not start such a project on that scale until late 1929 or 1930 with current payments for new cruisers to Atlantis and the battleship from the United States, that would place the first ship that could be laid down past were SS can operate. That and in 20 years the Chilean Fleet will be rather rusty, and the guns and any battleship they would fit on becomes airplane food, missile bait, or submarine fodder.)

Quoted

Sounds like we have a start there.

I'm not sure on this. x years of 'development' and Mongolia can build a super gun?. I think the magnitude of industry has to be reflected some how and if you don't have enough then you'll need to get help from somewhere. Even the US needed the hook out of the Lancaster to carry the A-bombs to Japan(and the rest of the help ; ))

Perhaps this can be linked into other 'research' activites. In the mean time I'll be mounting bed springs on my range finders just to give you all the sh*ts and give your naval intelligence officers something to work on.

On the opposite side of this arguement, there is nothing to stop Turkey from recieving technical assistance in building its own BB weapons from say Italy, but their should be some sort of price such as military expendature points or something along those lines.

We can't simply say a nation with "X" ammount of factory's can build a supergun, but we need to add in a few other factors to determine who can build what guns, radar ect. As Turkey I'm not about to even hope to be able to develope an atom bomb but I should be able to build half decent battleship guns.

Some nations seem to have the best of everything and we should have some sort of system that curtails this type of hindsight developement. What we need is a multi layered system that makes it difficult but not impossible, we are afterall in a role playing game.

I'd say time, money, factory's and resorces would all be determining factors.

It cost the USA $2billion to build a few nuclear weapons. That expenditure for a weapon that might not have worked. In peacetime there is no chance of developing the bomb. Unless we have a protracted war in the 1940s between major powers, it wont happen.

An Iowa cost c. $80m for c. 45,000tons of material. So 2000/80=25 Iowa Class ships or 1125000tons of material. @3000tons/quarter it would take 375quarters or 94 years to build the bomb. I'd prefer the ships.